Kathleen Mary Kenyon was the eldest daughter born January 5, 1906
to Sir Frederic Kenyon, Director of the British Museum.
Jericho, one
of the earliest continuous settlements in the world, was excavated by
KenyonKathleen Mary Kenyon was the eldest daughter born January 5, 1906
to Sir Frederic Kenyon, Director of the British Museum.
Jericho, one
of the earliest continuous settlements in the world, was excavated by
Kenyon
She attended Somerville College at Oxford Universityand later became the first female president of the Oxford Archeological Society. She graduated in 1929 and joined Gertrude Caton–Thomson excavating the ruins at Zimbabwe in Southern Rhodesia. When she returned from Zimbabwe she joined the staff of Sir Mortimer Wheeler. She traveled to Verulamium, a city north of London and studied Wheeler’s method of stratigraphic excavation, which involves excavating by trenches and requires careful observations, interpretation, and recording throughout the excavation.
While World War II raged, her work was confined to England. She
contributed to the founding of the University of London Institute of
Archeology. Kenyon was a lecturer in Palestinian Archeology and actively
combined seminar and classroom instruction with actual work in the field. She
conducted excavations at Sutton Walls in England and Sabratha in Italy and
served as the first Secretary and as acting Director during these war years.
She was associated with the Institute from 1935 to 1962.
In 1951 Kenyon became Honorary Director of the British School of
Archeology in Jerusalem. She found evidence that pushed back the occupation of
the mound at Jericho from the Bronze Age and Neolithic to the Natufian culture
at the end of the Ice Age (10,000 – 9,000 BC). Among the agricultural and
pottery finds were human skulls. Features were modeled with plaster and the eye
sockets inset with shells. Kenyon also excavated Jerusalem, but this site did
not attract much attention.
From 1962 to until her retirement in 1973, Kathleen Kenyon served as principal at St. Hugh’s College in Oxford. In 1973, because of her many accomplishments and contributions, Queen Elizabeth II named Kathleen Mary Kenyon DBE (Dame of the Order of the British Empire), the female version of knighthood. Dame Kathleen Kenyon then concentrated on publishing her work on Jericho and Jerusalem.Many works were edited and published after her death in 1978.
Written Works:
The Buildings of Samaria
Excavations at Jericho Vol. 1 and 2
Archaeology in the Holy Land
Beginnings in Archaeology
Digging up Jericho
Digging up Jerusalem
Jerusalem-Excavating 3000 years of History
Amorites and Canaanites
Recent Archaeology
Kenyon, Dame Kathleen (Mary) Encyclopedia Britannica Online http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9045128?&query=kathleenkenyon
Kathleen Mary Kenyonhttp://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/4770/index.html
The Cambridge Illustrated History of Archaeology, Edited by Paul G. Bahn (Cambridge University Press, 1996) pages 248-250 Anne Ward, Adventures in Archaeology (Larousse and Co, Inc., 1977) pages 109-121
Robert Silverberg, Frontiers in Archeology (Chilton Books, 1966) pages 7-25
Cheryl Dawley